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History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c15: Part III. Chapter IX. Kanauj After Harṣa’s Death to the Pratīhāra Conquest

History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c15

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English

Contents

Part III. Chapter IX. Kanauj After Harṣa’s Death to the Pratīhāra Conquest

Section A

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KANAUJ AFTER HARṢA’S DEATH TO THE PRATĪHĀRA CONQUEST

Effects of Harṣa’s death

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After a momentous reign lasting for well-nigh half a century, Harṣa passed away in the year 647 or 648 A. D.¹ The withdrawal of his strong arm let loose all the pent-up forces of anarchy, and the result was that the mighty fabric of the empire reared by the genius of Harṣa soon collapsed like a house of cards. The outlying provinces fell off one by one, and Kanauj itself became the scene of a violent upheaval. Although all our indigenous sources of information are cut off at this period, it is fortunate that the Chinese writer Ma-twan-lin (13th century) affords us some ray of light on this tale of confusion.

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¹ According to the *Life* (p. 156) Śīlādityarāja died “towards the end of the Yung Hwei period” (i.e., about 654-55 A. D.). Watters, on the other hand, states that “the date 648, or rather 647, is perhaps the correct one.” It was in the early part of the year 648 A. D. that the Emperor of China sent an ambassador to Harṣa, who was, however, dead before his arrival (*J. A. S. B.*, VI (1837), pp. 69-70).

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We are told that in 648 A. D. the Emperor of China with whom, as already noted, Harṣa had cultivated diplomatic friendship, sent a superior officer named Wangheuen-tse as head of a new mission “in order that the principles of humanity and justice which had been diffused in that country should have a protector and representative there.”¹ But before he arrived, She-lo-ye-to or king Śīlāditya had died, and the country was in the throes of a revolution.² One of the ministers named Na-fo-ti-a-la-na-shun, or O-la-na-shun (i.e., Aruṇāśva or Arjuna) usurped the deceased monarch’s throne and sent soldiers to oppose the entry of Wang-heuen-tse, who, however, took with him some tens of cavalry and directed a counter attack against the forces of the usurper. The small armed escort of the mission was massacred in cold blood, and the tributes received on the way were seized, but Wang-heuen-tse in the dead of night was lucky enough to make his way to the western frontiers of Too-fan or Tibet. This triumph of the usurper stimulated his ambitions, and he further “used violence to make other kingdoms pay him tribute.”³ But the Chinese envoy resolved to avenge his humiliation, and called upon the neighbouring kingdoms to render him assistance. The king of Tibet, the famous Srong-btsan-Gampo, who was married to the Chinese princess Weng Chang, sent him a contingent of one thousand armed men, and Nepal supplied 7,000 cavalry. Having organised this small force, Wang-heuen-tse descended into the plains to give battle, and took the city of Too-po-ho-lo⁴ by assault in three days. Three thousand men were beheaded, and ten thousand more were drowned in the river identified by Smith with the Bagmati. O-lo-na-shun or Arjuna escaped into another kingdom, and rallying his dispersed hosts attempted a fresh encounter. But he again met with a disastrous rout, being taken prisoner along with a large body of men, who were promptly beheaded. In a subsequent action the Chinese general captured 12,000 men and women, besides animals of all kinds amounting to 20,000. He also subdued 580 towns, and his power grew so strong that even She-keaou-mo or Srikumāra, who had been a firm ally of Harṣa, sent a large number of oxen, horses, weapons, and provisions for the victorious army. Wang-heuen-tse brought Arjuna to China to present him to the Emperor as a vanquished foe and received ample recognition of his services by being promoted to the rank of Chao-san-ta-fu (a sort of aulic councillor).¹ The authority of the usurper was thus subverted, and with it the last vestiges of Harṣa's power also disappeared.

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¹ J. A. S. B., VI (1837), p. 69.

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² The Life (p. 155) also represents Yuan Chwang as being told in a dream by a golden figure : “You should return soon, for after ten years Śīlādityarāja will be dead, and India be laid waste and in rebellion, wicked men will slaughter one another; remember these words of mine.”

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³ Ind. Ant., IX, p. 20.

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⁴ Substituting Ca (cha) for Too (the first character), the name is regarded as equivalent to Camparan or Chapra (J. A. S. B., VI, p. 69, note). But Smith identifies it with Tirhut (*Early. Hist. of India.*, 4th ed., p. 367).

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¹ This account is mainly based on the translations of Ma-twan-lin (See *J. A. S. B.*, VI, pp. 69-70; *Early Hist. of India*, 4th ed., pp. 366-67; *J. R. A. S.*, 1869-70 (N. S. IV), pp. 85-86; *Ind. Ant.*, IX, p. 20; *Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China and Australia*, 1836, pp. 220-21). C. V. Vaidya, however, disbelieves this story (*H. M. H. I.*, Vol. I, pp. 334-35; See also N. Ray, *Ind. Hist. Quart.*, Dec. 1927, p. 792). The figures cited above must be taken with some reserve as they savour of Chinese vanity.

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What followed next was only a general scramble to feast on the carcase of the empire. Bhāskaravarman of Kāmarūpa (Assam), after breaking off friendly relations with Kanauj, appears to have annexed Karṇasuvarṇa and the adjacent territories, which were formerly included within his great ally's dominions.¹ This is evident from the Nidhanpur plate issued from his camp there, and the learned editor of the inscription may even be right in asserting that it was in commemoration of his triumphant entry into the capital of Karṇasuvarṇa that the king of Assam made this grant of land to a Brahman of the locality.²

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¹ See *ante*.

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² *Ep. Ind.*, XII, p. 66.

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In Magadha Ādityasena, the son of Mādhavagupta who was a feudatory of Harṣa, gave a good account of himself by reviving to some extent the lost glory of the Guptas. According to the Shahpur inscription he was ruling in the year 66 of the Harṣa era i.e., 672; and in the Mandar inscription he is given the imperial titles of Mahārājādhirāja and Paramabhaṭṭāraka.³ In one inscription he is described as "the ruler of the (whole) earth upto the shores of the oceans; the performer of the Aśvamedha and other great sacrifices."⁴ Another Nepalese record calls him "Great Ādityasena, the illustrious lord of Magadha."⁵ It is thus indubitably clear from these facts that soon after the sceptre dropped from the hand of Harṣa, Ādityasena raised himself to a paramount position and brought under his domination lands formerly subject to Kanauj. In the west and north-west those powers that had lived in dread of Harṣa asserted themselves with greater vigour. Among them were the Gurjaras of Rajputana and the Punjab and the Karkoṭakas of Kashmir, who during the course of the next century became a formidable factor in the politics of Northern India.

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³ C. I. I., III, p. 212.

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⁴ *Ibid.*, p. 213, note.

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⁵ *Ind. Ant.*, IX, p. 181.

Blank in History

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The period from the fall of the usurper to the rise of Yaśovarman, nearly three-quarters of a century later, is one of the darkest in the whole range of the history of Kanauj, and every event of that time is hidden from view by a thick veil of oblivion. Cunningham partially tried to unravel this mystery. He thought that Ranmul was ruling over Kanauj in A. D. 700, and invaded the distant Sindh.¹ Cunningham also asserted on the testimony of Abul-Fazl that Harcand, the contemporary of Mohammed-ibn-Kasim, ascended the throne of Kanauj in 715 A. D., which, if true, would make him almost the immediate predecessor of Yaśovarman.² But the distinguished archæologist's opinion is not substantiated by any other evidence, and so it is difficult to put any reliance on it. Besides, we do not know to what dynasty they belonged, and how they came to power. We must, therefore, refrain from vague speculations, and travel down the stream of time till we come to an anchorage of historical fact.

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¹ J. A. S. B., X, Part I, p. 188.

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² Āyīn-i-Akbarī, II, p. 219; Elliot, Cach-Nāma, I, p. 208.

Section B. Yaśovarman

Sources

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After Harṣa's death the earliest monarch, whose name has been recorded in literature and also perhaps in an inscription,³ is Yaśovarman. He was apparently a king of some note, and his exploits form the subject of a contemporary Prakrit document called the Gauḍavaho, which, though planned on an enormous scale (viyaḍa = vikaṭa), on the whole, as remarked by Dr. Keith, contains “as little history as possible.”¹ Some welcome light on his career is also thrown by Kalhaṇa’s Rājatarangiṇī and the Jain works like the Prabhāvakacarita, the Prabandha-Koṣa, and the Bappabhaṭṭasūricarita, and we shall appraise the value of their testimony later on.

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³ Cf. the Nalanda stone inscription of Yaśovarmadeva. Dr. Hīrānanda Śāstrī, the editor of the inscription, however, identifies him with Yaśodharman of the Mandasor inscriptions (Ep. Ind., Vol. XX (January, 1929), pp. 39-40). See Infra for this controversy.

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¹ A History of Sanskrit Literature (1928), p. 150.

His lineage

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The first question that arises is whether Yaśovarman was a mere upstart adventurer who shot up like a brilliant meteor and soon vanished into nothingness, or had he any ancestral claims to the throne of Kanauj? Vākpati, the author of the Gauḍavaho, praises him as “an ornament to the lunar race of kings, to which he belonged,”² and we may, therefore, assume that he came of some celebrated Kṣatriya family. Cunningham thought that he was a descendant of the Maukharis, and the common termination—varman—of their names even lends some colour to this view.³ Besides, they had ruled over Kanauj before the epoch of Harṣa, and it is possible that after the suppression of the usurper the kingdom was restored to some unrecorded member of this house, from whom it devolved on Yaśovarman. There is indeed a mention of a Bhogavarman, “the crest-jewel of the illustrious varmans of the valorous Maukhari race,” who was contemporary with Adityasena of Magadha and Sivadeva II of Nepal—being the son-in-law of the former and father-in-law of the latter—, in one of the Nepalese inscriptions,¹ but unfortunately it does not make it clear whether he had any connection with Kanauj. The late Jain work *Bappabhaṭṭasūricarita*, on the other hand, represents Yaśovarman as “the illustrious ruler of Kānyakubja, who was the head-jewel of the famous dynasty of Candragupta, by whom was made illustrious the already illustrious family of the Mauryas.”² It is interesting to add that the *Prabhāvaka-carita* (13th or 14th century A. D.) also describes Yaśovarman as having descended from, and been a bright ornament in the family of Candragupta.³ But the kings of the Maurya dynasty did not take names ending in—*varman*, and we have no other evidence to corroborate the Jain statement. Even the Nalanda stone inscription, which most probably belongs to the time of our Kanauj monarch, does not afford us any clue on this point. Thus in the absence of any positive proofs it is better not to credit Yaśovarman with any well-known ancestry, and for the present to let him stand isolated and unconnected.

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² Gauḍavaho (S. P. Pandit’s ed.) verses 1064-65. See also Introduction, p. xxxix.

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³ Arch. Surv. Ind. Rep., XV, p. 164. See also N. Ray, Cal. Rev., Feb., 1928, p. 216; E. A. Pires, The Maukharis, pp. 136-137.

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¹ *Ind. Ant.*, IX, pp. 171, 181, verse 13.

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² *J. B. B. R. A. S.*, Vol. III, May, 1928, pp. 103, 314.

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³ See H. M. Śarmā’s ed. (Bombay, 1909), XI verses 46-47, p. 131.

Approximate date

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Chronology being the weakest spot in Hindu history, it is obviously difficult to fix the limits of Yaśovarman’s reign with any amount of accuracy. Smith was of opinion that he ruled from *circa* 728 to 745 A. D.,⁴ and Sankara Pāṇḍuranga Pandit in his learned introduction of the *Gauḍavaho* comes to the conclusion that “Yaśovarman must have reigned in the latter part of the seventh and the first part of the eighth century A. D.”¹ We may, however, first determine the period of Yaśovarman with reference to the chronological setting of his contemporary and rival, Lalitāditya of Kashmir, and then try to arrive at a closer approximation. The date of Lalitāditya can be worked out either by counting the years of all successive kings of the valley till he came to the throne, or by calculating back from the completion of Kalhaṇa’s *Rājatarangiṇī* to his accession. But as the dates and reigns of kings back from Jayasiṃha, the contemporary of Kalhaṇa, rest on a far more sure basis than those of the distant predecessors of Lalitāditya, we shall follow the latter method here.

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⁴ *J. R. A. S.*, 1908, p. 784.

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¹ *Gauḍavaho*, Introduction, pp. xcv-vi.

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Kalhaṇa mentions the year 25 of the Laukika or Saptarṣi era as the time of the finishing of his great work, which he began in 24 Laukika era corresponding to 1070 Saka according to the method of turning a Laukika into a Saka year given in Sir R. G. Bhandarkar’s *Report on Manuscripts* (1883-84, p. 84). The sum of the duration of reigns from Jayasiṃha, who had at this date ruled for twenty-two years, to Lalitāditya has been given by Sankara P. Pandit on the basis of his computation as 455 years, 7 months and 11 days.² If we, therefore, subtract these years from 1071 Saka i.e., the year 25 of the Laukika era, we get *circa* Saka 615 or 693 A. D., as the date of Lalitāditya’s accession to the throne. He is recorded to have reigned for 36 years, 7 months and 11 days, and thus, according to Kalhaṇa, Lalitāditya’s reign may be fixed between 693 and 730 A. D. A comparison with Chinese chronology, however, throws doubt on the correctness of these dates. The Chinese Annals of the Tang dynasty represent Tchen-t’o-lo-pi-li or Candrāpīḍa, the second predecessor of Muktāpīḍa, as having sent an embassy to the Chinese court in the year 713 A. D. to seek its aid against the Arabs, and as receiving investiture as king from the Emperor of China in 720 A. D., whereas according to Kalhaṇa’s chronology Candrāpīḍa was already dead in 689 A. D. As the Chinese have been more precise in their system of chronology, evidently there must be a mistake of at least 31 years in Kalhaṇa’s calculation, supposing Candrāpīḍa to have died the very year he received the title from China. Hence if we apply the correction of 31 years, Lalitāditya’s date will fall between 724 and 760 A. D., and being his contemporary Yaśovarman must also be assigned to the same period.

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² *Gauḍavaho*, Introduction, pp. lxxxvi-xcii. The total of the durations includes the reign-period of Saṃgrāmāpīḍa, which is 7 years. Some Mss. read “vāsārān” (days) for “vatsarān,” which, however, is incorrect (See *Ibid.*, p. lxxxvi note).

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Having arrived at this rough indication, we may now try to ascertain more definite limits of his reign. The Chinese authorities mention that a “king of Central India,” of the name of I-cha-fon-mo, sent his minister Seng-po-ta to China in 731 A. D., and the former has, I suppose, been correctly identified with Yaśovarman of Kanauj.¹ Probably he despatched this embassy in order to enlist the support of the Emperor of China, who was by far the most powerful Asiatic potentate of those times, soon after his accession, which we may, therefore, approximately date in the year 725 A. D. With regard to the last limit of his reign, the Jain writers seem to give us a fairly correct clue. Most of them state that he was ruling in V. E. 800 or 743 A. D., and Rājaśekhara, the author of the Prabandhakoṣa, leads us a step further. He informs us that a Jain saint named Bappabhaṭṭi, who was initiated as a monk in V. E. 807, converted to Jainism Amarāja, the son and successor of Yaśovarman. Bappabhaṭṭi was next raised to the dignity of Sūri in V. E. 811 after his royal disciple had ascended the throne. It is thus evident that Yaśovarman must have died sometime between the years 807 V. E. and 811 V. E., corresponding to 750 and 754 A. D., i.e., about the year 752 A. D. These dates (725-752 A. D.) fit in very well with the dates of Lalitāditya, and we may be sure that they leave little margin for error.¹

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¹ Stein, Rājat., Introd. p. 89; Bk. IV, verse 134, note.

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¹ See also the “Collected works of Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, Vol. II, pp. 429-33.

Conquering expeditions

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The author of the *Gauḍavaho* credits Yaśovarman with having carried on expeditions of conquest (Vijayayātrā) in the manner of the mythical “world-conquerors.” These exploits read more like fiction than sober history, but before offering any destructive criticism let us pause to present the story as narrated by Vākpati. Yaśovarman is represented as having first turned his energies in a south-easterly direction, and the only indication given of the line of his advance is that he halted on the way to pay homage to the celebrated non-Aryan deity, the Vindhya-vāsinī-Devī, whose shrine now stands near the modern city of Mirzapur in the United Provinces. It is interesting to note in passing that human sacrifices were made to this goddess, and at this distance in time one may well shudder at the idea of kings subscribing to such a blood-thirsty and barbarous cult. The details of the march, however, are not recorded, but the road to this temple from Kanauj would ordinarily lie through the present districts of Cawnpore, Fatehpur and Prayāga or Allahabad. We may, therefore, assume that Yaśovarman followed that route. His adversary, who is simply described as “Magahanāha” or “Magadhanātha” i.e., lord of Magadha, at first tried to avoid his steel, but mustering courage returned to fight after some time. A tough battle ensued, and it resulted in the defeat and death of the ruler of Magadha, who was most probably identical with Jivitagupta II.¹ As Vākpati has given the title of "Gauḍavaho" to his work, it may reasonably be supposed that the vanquished monarch held sway over parts—perhaps Western—of Bengal also. Yaśovarman is next said to have subjugated the king of the Vangas or eastern Bengal, who was "powerful in the possession of a large number of warlike elephants." Although we cannot be sure about the identity of the latter, Dr. R. G. Basak conjectures that he may have been Rājarājabhaṭṭa of the Khaḍga dynasty.² Yaśovarman then went by the road across the Malaya mountain (the southern Sahyādri), accepting the submission of an unnamed king of the Deccan. His arms are even represented to have penetrated as far as the seashore "where Vāli, taking under his armpit the mighty Rāvaṇa, roamed about at sea." It is difficult to make out what part of the country the poet speaks of, but probably the author takes his hero as far as the sea only to complete the conventional area of "world conquest." The next enemies whom he conquered in a hard-fought battle were the Pārasikas, who are a riddle to many. Bühler identified them with the Persians,³ but beyond the superficial similarity in sound there is nothing to commend this view. They are placed among the countries of the south, and as Vākpati follows some sort of geographical order, we must look for them in the south. Curiously enough, a Cālukya inscription¹ gives us a clue to them, since among the southern conquests of the Cālukya Vinayāditya it includes the Pārasikas along with the Kāmeras or Kāveras, and the Coḷas. Levying tributes in regions made inaccessible by the western mountains, i.e., the Ghats, Yaśovarman followed the route across the Nerbudda and the Marudeśa or Marwar, and arrived in the land of Śrikaṇṭha or Thanesvar made famous in history by the Vardhana dynasty. He is then alleged to have marched to the site of Ayodhyā, the city of Hariścandra,² and received the submission of the people living on the Mandāra mountains. These regions of the north, known in connection with the lord of the Yakṣas³, are said to be "perfumed with the gum exuding from fissures in the Devadarus," which clearly indicates that we have an allusion to some Himalayan country. "Having thus conquered the world," Yaśovarman returned to the capital, and dismissed the numerous kings who had been compelled to accompany him after their subjugation.

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¹ See also R. D. Banerji, *Mem. As. Soc. Beng.*, Vol. V, No. 3, p. 43. For a different identification with king Harṣa of Assam, "in whose territory was included Bengal," see Kṛṣṇasvāmī Aiyangar's article "Forgotten episodes in Mediæval India" in *Journal of Indian History*, Vol. V, pt. III, p. 327.

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² *The History of North-Eastern India*, p. 208.

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³ *Ind. Ant.*, XLII (1913), p. 249.

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¹ Ibid., IX, p. 129; see also Fleet, *Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts*, p. 368.

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² Smith thinks that the reference to Ayodhyā cannot be to the well-known city of Rāma in Southern Oudh, but must mean some place much farther north to which the legend of Hariścandra’s aerial city was attached (J. R. A. S., 1908, p. 779).

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³ Dr. Hoernle thinks that this last move sounds very much as if it described the king’s going to *svarga* i.e., his demise after his conquest (J. R. A. S., 1909, p. 106). But this view is not tenable, as Yaśovarman is recorded to have come into conflict with Lalitāditya of Kashmir subsequently.

Criticism of this campaign

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Commenting on the story of Yaśovarman’s expedition Smith says : "I see no reason to doubt the substantial truth of this contemporary testimony. There is nothing incredible in the assertion that a powerful king, occupying at Kanauj a good central position, should have carried his arms eastwards across Bengal, southwards to the Narmada, and northwards to the foot of the mountains.”¹ It is true that in ancient India such hostile operations with or without provocation were quite common, and each aspiring Kṣatriya king considered it his highest duty to wage successful wars and perform the Aśvamedha sacrifice as a mark of power and widespread suzerainty. But with all deference to the opinion of the late historian, I venture to say that the nature of Vākpati’s poem itself does not allow us to give it any substantial measure of credence. Its non-completion shows that the poet conceived the *digvijaya* as a probable event and not an actual fact, while it may not even be unreasonable to suppose that he took the conquests of the mythical Raghu as a model for singing the alleged achievements of his hero. Moreover, no vanquished king is mentioned by name, and this introduces no small element of doubt into the whole story; which is obnoxiously full of vile flattery and vain exaggerations. Probably the central theme of the poem—the killing of the king of the Gauḍas and Magadha—was an historical reality, for, as we have seen above, this region had been controlled by Kanauj during the time of Harṣa and the Maukharis also. Yaśovarman, who appears to have been an ambitious monarch, perhaps attempted to regain control of the lower course of the Ganges, and it may be that the complete success of his campaign induced his panegyrist to invest him with the halo of a “world-conqueror.”

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¹ J. R. A. S., 1908, p. 779.

Foundation of a town

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Yaśovarman is credited with having founded a town in his name in Magadha,¹ and this, I suppose, he did either to commemorate his victory over the "lord of Magadha and Gauḍa," or to mark the site of the battle. Such a practice was not uncommon in ancient times, and we may recall that Alexander similarly marked his victory by the foundation of two towns, one named Nikaia situated on the battlefield; and the other called Boukephala, located at a point whence Alexander started to cross the Hydaspes.² Yaśovarman's town has been identified by Cunningham with the present town of Bihar,³ but Kielhorn was of opinion that preferably Ghosrawa was its modern representative.⁴ We get a glimpse of its importance during the Pāla period also, for it was to the *Vihāra* of Yaśovarmapura that Viradeva went after visiting the diamond throne at Mahābodhi (Bodh Gayā), and stayed there for a long time enjoying king Devapāla's patronage.⁵

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¹ *Arch. Surv. Ind. Rep.*, III, pp. 135-36; XV, 164.

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² *Early Hist. of India*, 4th ed. pp. 74-75.

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³ *Arch. Surv. Ind. Rep.*, III, pp. 120, 135-36; VIII, p. 76.

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⁴ *Ind. Ant.*, XVII (1888), pp. 309, 311, note 30.

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⁵ *Ibid.*

War with Kashmir

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Kalhaṇa represents Lalitāditya Muktāpīḍa as a mighty monarch, who, "being eager for conquests," passed most of his time in expeditions abroad, "moving round the earth like the sun."⁶ His ambitions naturally brought him into conflict with the rising power of Yaśovarman, and in the struggle which followed his attack the "thoughtful ruler of Kānyakubja" is said to have, like a wise man, first "showed his back to the fiercely shining Lalitāditya, and (then) made his submission."⁷ A treaty was drawn up, and the document was called “the treaty of Yaśovarman and Lalitāditya,” but Mitraśarman, the Kashmiri minister of Foreign Affairs (Sāndhivigrahika) refused to ratify it on the ground that it meant a slight to his victorious master, if the name of the defeated Kanauj sovereign were allowed to precede. Thereupon negotiations broke off, and Lalitāditya highly esteeming his minister’s insistence on the proper form, bestowed upon him the five great offices distinguished by the term “great” (pañcamahā-śabda)¹. This led to a resumption of hostilities, though his generals, “who were dissatisfied with the long duration of the war, blamed it.”²

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⁶ *Rājat.*, Bk. IV, verse 131, (Stein, p. 131).

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⁷ *Ibid.*, verse 135, (Stein, p. 132). Cf. "Matimān Kanyakubjen-

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¹ *Ibid.*, verse 140, (Stein, p. 133). According to Fleet also the above is the special significance of the term “pañca-mahāśabda” in the Rājatarangiṇī. But it usually denoted “the sounds of five great musical instruments (pañca-mahāvādya), the use of which was allowed, as a special mark of distinction to persons of high rank and authority (*Ep. Ind.*, XII, pp. 254-55). See also *Ind. Ant.*, I, p. 81; IV, pp. 106, 180, 204; XIII, p. 134, etc. Sometimes, however, the epithet was applied to paramount kings (*Ep. Ind.*, VI, p. 106; *C. I. I*, III, p. 296, n. 9).

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² *Rājat.*, Bk. IV, verse 139, (Stein, p. 133).

Its results

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The consequences of the renewed military activities were of course disastrous to the arms of Yaśovarman, but we seem to have no certain information as to what happened to his throne and person. The Rājatarangiṇī in one place claims that “the land of Kanyakubja from the bank of the Jumna to that of the Kālikā was as much in his (Lalitāditya’s) power as the courtyard of his palace,”³

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³ Bk. IV, verse 145, (Stein, p. 134). Cf. “Kimanyat Kanyakubjorvī yamunā pāratosya sā, Abhūdā Kālikātīram gṛiha-prāṇ-ganavadvaśe.” The Kālikā may be identified with the present Kālinadī, which joins the Ganges at a short distance below Kanauj.

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draḥ pratyabhāt Krityavedinām, Dīptam yat Lalitādityam priṣṭam datvā nyaṣevat.”

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and that Yaśovarman was “uprooted entirely” (samūlaṃ udapāṭayat).¹ Further, we are told that “swelled with pride the king (Lalitāditya) granted the land of Kanyakubja with its villages to the (shrine of) Āditya, (which he erected) at that town of Lalitapura” (Latpor).² It thus indicates that Kanauj was annexed to the dominions of Kashmir, and its king perhaps put to death during the course of the conflict.³ But elsewhere Kalhaṇa affirms that Yaśovarman, “who had been served by Vākpatirāja, the illustrious Bhavabhūti, and other poets, (himself) became by his defeat a panegyrist of his (Lalitāditya’s) virtues.”⁴ In the face of this dubious testimony, we would, therefore, suggest that although Yaśovarman was worsted in the fight, the stubborn resistance of the Kanaujias, as is evident from the reference to the “long duration” of the struggle, deterred Lalitāditya from proceeding to extremities, and he suffered his adversary after a nominal acknowledgement of supremacy to remain on the throne. Confirmation of this view may further be had from the *Travels* of Ou-Kông, according to which Mung-ti (Muktāpīḍa) was in alliance with the ruler of Central India (Yaśovarman) and together they blocked “the five passes” leading from Tibet. Here we may also refer to a hoard of Lalitāditya’s coins discovered in the Banda district of the United Provinces.⁵ This find, it has been urged, lends support to the theory that the kingdom of Kanauj passed under the jurisdiction of Lalitāditya and his coins became current there. Such a conclusion, however, does not appear to be quite warranted. The hoard may only represent part of the treasures Lalitāditya carried for the maintenance of his forces, which, to quote the evidence of the *Rājatarangiṇī*, progressed triumphantly eastwards to Gauḍa and other regions. The army perhaps encamped near Banda for sometime, and thus left its mark in the form of these coins.

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¹ *Ibid.*, verse 140, (Stein, p. 133).

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² *Ibid.*, verse 187, (Stein, p. 139).

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³ See *J. R. A. S.*, 1908, p. 777.

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⁴ *Rājaṭ.*, Bk. IV, verse 144, (Stein, p. 134).

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⁵ *J. A. S. B.*, Numismatic Supplement, XLI (1928), pp. N. 7-8

Date of the defeat

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From the account of Lalitāditya’s embassy to China Dr. Stein thinks that he must have subdued Yaśovarman after the date of the embassy i.e., long after A. D. 736.¹ Smith, on the other hand, definitively places the event in 745 A. D.;² but in our humble opinion the catastrophe occurred earlier in his reign. In stanzas 827-31 of S. P. Pandit’s edition of the *Gauḍavaho* we have mention of some portentous happenings, which took place on the occasion “when the corner of Yaśovarman’s eye became twisted in consequence of a momentary shaking of his (kingly) position.” This has been taken by Professor Jacobi to be a reference to Lalitāditya’s invasion; and he seems to be right considering that his (Yaśovarman’s) defeat did not entail death or dethronement. Among other portentous occurrences was the assumption by the disc of the sun when it was pierced through by the Ketu, of the form of an anklet as it were of the Lakṣmī (fortune) of the three worlds dislocated from her foot when she thrust it forth violently in anger (stanza 829). Evidently this passage alludes to an eclipse of the sun, which, according to astronomical calculations made by Prof. Jacobi, occurred and was visible at Kanauj on the 14th day of August, 733 A. D.¹ Hence this year also represents the date of the attack on Kanauj.

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¹ *Rājat.*, Trans. Introd., Vol. I, p. 89. The claim of the Kashmiri ambassador that the king of Central India, identified with Yaśovarman, was his master’s ally, would further confirm our contention that the two monarchs became friends after a trial of strength.

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² *J. R. A. S.*, 1908-9, p. 761. The date has been fixed as A. D. 740 in *Early History of India*, 4th ed., p. 392.

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¹ Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1888, vol. II, pp. 67-68.

Nalanda stone inscription of Yaśovarmmadeva

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This interesting inscription in high-flown Sanskrit was discovered a few years ago at Nalanda.² It is a Buddhist document, and its object is to record that Mālada, the son of Yaśovarmmadeva’s minister, who is called Mārgapati, as well as Udīcipati and Pratīta-Tikiṇa, made certain gifts to the community of Bhikṣus and to the temple erected by king Bālāditya at Nalanda in honour of the “son of Suddhodana” i.e., the Buddha. It extols Yaśovarman in hyperbolic terms as the *lokapāla* (guardian of the world), who “has risen after placing his foot on the heads of all the kings and has completely removed the terrific darkness in the form of all his foes by the diffusion of the rays of his sword.”³ Now the problem arises: Who was this great monarch? Unfortunately, the epigraph is not dated, and it does not also mention his ancestry or any of his successors. This has, therefore, been the source of some controversy with regard to his identity.⁴ Dr. Hīrānanda Śāstrī thinks that he is identical with Yaśodharman of the Mandasor inscriptions, and further corrects the latter’s name into Yaśovarman.⁵ He relies mainly on the ground that the inscription “was written when Bālāditya was ruling, and when king Yaśovarmmadeva was holding the reins of sovereignty.”¹ Since this Bālāditya is, in Dr. Śāstrī’s opinion, the same as “the homonymous chief whom Yuan Chwang eulogises as the subduer of Mihirakula and the founder of the grand temple at Nalanda,” he finds it reasonable to identify Yaśovarmmadeva with Yaśodharmadeva, who was a contemporary of the Hūṇa chief, and hence also of Bālāditya. But, as pointed out by Dr. R. C. Majumdar, there is no warrant for the above assumption. The inscription merely alludes to a temple built by Bālāditya, and nowhere does it seem to imply that he was alive and ruling at the time it was set up. Besides, palæographical considerations indicate that the document probably belongs to a date much later than that of Yaśodharman. Dr. Śāstrī himself admits that the letters in which it is written present “a very marked development in contrast with those of the contemporary or even somewhat later inscriptions, and they largely resemble the characters of the Aphsad inscription of Ādityasena,”² whose known date from the Shahpur record is 66 = 672 A. D. He further notes that “the alphabet used in the inscription is, to a large extent, identical with the Devanāgarī or the Nāgarī.”³ And yet, strange to say, the similarity with the script of the Horiuzi (Japan) palm-leaf manuscript of the Uṣṇīṣavijayadhāraṇī of uncertain date has lead Dr. Śāstrī to assign the epigraph to a ruler flourishing in 533-34 A. D. according to the Mandasor inscription. Lastly, the suggested correction of the name Yaśodharman into Yaśovarman has hardly any justification, and there can be absolutely no doubt from the facsimile that the latter name is the correct reading. We may add here that even Fleet, who considered the form of the name while editing the Mandasor inscription refrained from adopting any change in the termination.¹ It would thus appear from the above discussion that the present inscription most probably belongs to the reign of Yaśovarman of Kanauj, who, as we know from the Gauḍavaho, had brought Magadha under his subjection.

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² Ep. Ind., Vol. XX (January, 1929), pp. 37-46.

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³ Ibid., pp. 43, 45, verse 2.

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⁴ See for this controversy Ind. Hist. Quart., VII (1931), p. 664; VIII (March, 1932), pp. 228-30; VIII (June, 1932), pp. 371-73; VIII (Septr., 1932), pp. 615-17.

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⁵ Ep. Ind., XX, p. 40.

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¹ Ibid.

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² Ep. Ind., XX, p. 38.

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³ Ibid.

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¹ C. I. I., Vol. III, p. 145, note 2.

Consideration of coins

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There have been discovered some crude coins of the Indo-Scythian type bearing the name of Yaśovarma,² which are more barbarous than those of Durlabhaka Pratāpāditya II (circa 700 A. D.), but not quite so degraded as the issues of Jayāpīḍa Vinayāditya (779 A. D.). Their proper place is thus between the coinage of these two kings from the numismatic point of view, and they have accordingly been ascribed to Yaśovarman on the ground that he is the only prince with this name recorded to have been ruling at this period, and that the Kashmir list knows of no such monarch.³ The Rājatarangiṇī⁴, of course, refers to a Yaśovarman, who was related to the royal family of Kashmir, but he never sat on the throne, and his date, circa 850 A. D., also appears to be very late. We cannot, however, be quite definite about their attribution, since the above view is open to certain objections. First, these coins have all been found in the Panjab, Kashmir and in the distant Manikyāla stūpa, none of the specimens coming from the Kanauj territory. Secondly, their fabric and general appearance betray a Kashmiri or Panjabi origin, while there is nothing whatever, even in the exaggerated accounts of Vākpati, to show that Yaśovarman’s arms ever penetrated so far northwards, much less that he was in possession of these regions. Thus it seems more probable from the provenance and deteriorated style of these coins that they were struck by an otherwise unknown minor king of the Panjab or Kashmir during the sixth or seventh century, rather than by Yaśovarman of Kanauj.¹

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² Obverse—"Scarcely recognisable copy of the Kushan standing king; Ki below left arm." Reverse—"Headless seated goddess, even more barbarous than on the Pratāpa coins. Brāhmī legend on the right "Śrī Yaśov (arma)." (Smith, Cat. Coi. Ind. Mus., Vol. I, p. 268; Cunningham, Coins of Med. India, p. 44, note 20).

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³ J. A. S. B., XXIII, p. 700; J. R. A. S., 1908, pp. 783-84.

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⁴ Rājat., Vol. I, Bk. IV, verse 706, (Stein, p. 184).

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¹ Dr. Hoernle assigns these coins to Yaśodharman of the Mandasor inscriptions (J. R. A. S., 1903, p. 551; 1909, pp. 105-08; Proc. As. Soc. Beng., 1888, pp. 181-82).

Literary activity at Yaśovarman’s court

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Like many well-known kings of ancient India Yaśovarman was both a poet and a patron of letters, and the Rājatarangiṇī alludes to this in the following passage :

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“Kavir-Vākpatirāja-Śrī-Bhavabhūty-ādi sevitaḥ,
Jito yayau Yaśovarmā tadguṇa-stutivanditām.”

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i.e., “the poet Yaśovarman, who had been served by Vākpatirāja, the illustrious Bhavabhūti, and other poets, (himself) became by his defeat (at the hands of Lalitāditya) a panegyrist of his (Lalitāditya’s) virtues.”² Unfortunately, there is no extant work which we can attribute to him with certainty, although the play entitled Rāmābhyudaya³ and some poems cited in Vallabhadeva’s Subhāṣitāvali are said to have been the compositions of one Yaśovarman, identified with his Kanauj namesake. The stanza also gives us the names of two literary geniuses—Vākpatirāja and Bhavabhūti⁴ —who adorned his court, and, as we shall see below, Kalhaṇa’s testimony is amply confirmed by the literary tradition of the Jains and by Vākpati himself. Of the two, Bhavabhūti was the more gifted poet and Vākpati frankly acknowledges his debt to him saying : “even now in his rugged compositions excellences are sparkling like drops of the *amrita* liquid of poetry, which have come out of the ocean (called) Bhavabhūti.” He is the author of the three well-known Sanskrit plays, *Mālatīmādhava*, *Mahāvīracarita* and *Uttararāmacarita*. Hertel is of opinion that “all of them must have been composed in Kanauj” in order to be performed “before an audience of pilgrims in the temple of Kālapriyanātha, who evidently was Yaśovarman’s family deity.”¹ It is, however, usually assumed that the Lord Kālapriya is the same as the Mahākāleśvara, whose famous shrine at Ujjain in Malwa is mentioned by Kālidāsa (*Raghuvamśa*, VI, 34), and Bāṇa (*Kādambarī*, p. 53, ed. Peterson) etc. But this identification seems inadmissible inasmuch as Bhavabhūti tells us in the *Mālatīmādhava* that his ancestral home in Padmapura, corresponding with modern Padmāvatī or Narvar in the Gwalior state,² is “on the road to the south” with reference to the shrine of the Lord Kālapriya. We have, therefore, to look for some place to the north of Padmāvatī, and it is quite likely that Yaśovarman, who was perhaps a Śaiva or a Śākta (witness his visit to the goddess Vindhyavāsinī) had a temple of this description in the capital also.³ The

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² Bk. IV, verse 144, (Stein, p. 134).

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³ Ind. Ant., XLI (1912), p. 141.

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⁴ Prof. Max-Müller in interpreting the above verse made Rājyaśrī a separate poet (India, What can it teach us?, p. 334). But

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¹ *Asia Major*, Vol. I, pp. 12-13.

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² *Arch. Surv. Ind. Rep.*, 1862-65, Vol. II, pp. 307-08.

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³ Some scholars, however, think that the temple of Kālapriya was in Kalpi (U. P.).

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Sanskrit literature knows of no poet with this name. The word *rāja* here is to be connected with Vākpati, and Śrī is only an honorific prefixed to the name of Bhavabhūti. It is significant that in the *Gauḍavaho* Vākpati speaks of himself as Vappairāya or Vākpati-rāja.

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genius of Bhavabhūti has received its full meed of appreciation from Sanskrit authors. Rājaśekhara calls him “an incarnation of Vālmīki” in his *Bāla-Rāmāyaṇa*¹ and some critics even declare that Bhavabhūti excels Kālidāsa in the *Uttararāmacarita*.² The other literary luminary of Yaśovarman’s court was Vappaīrāya or Vākpati, described in the *Bappabhaṭṭacarita* as “the head-jewel of the Kṣatriyas and born of the Paramāra clan.” He appears to have enjoyed royal favour to a greater extent than his senior Bhavabhūti. Vākpati calls himself the king’s “paṇayi lavo” (literally a particle of a favourite friend), and claims that he was at the head of the poets (Kaī-rāya i.e., Kavirāja).³ He wrote in Prakrit, and according to the Jain legends he was at first in the service of the king of Gauḍa at Lakṣamaṇāvatī, and thence passed to the court of the victorious Yaśovarman. It is alleged that in the latter part of his life he became a convert to Jainism, and after undergoing severe penances in Mathura voluntarily starved himself to death (*anaśana*) in accordance with the Jain rule for men desirous of making a good end. Before writing the *Gauḍavaho* Vākpati composed a poem entitled *Mahu-Maha-Viyaya* (Madhu-Matha-Vijaya). He considered it to be his best work;⁴ but its text has not been discovered, and nothing can be said of it except that it probably dealt with the death of the demon Madhu at the hands of Viṣṇu. At present Vākpati’s only extant work is the *Gauḍavaho* comprising 1209 couplets, which, as conjectured by Dr. Keith, was probably “left unfinished owing to Yaśovarman's death;” or it may be a “series of excerpts dealing with those topics which the Pandits liked, omitting tedious historical details.”¹

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¹ I, 16; see also *Bālabhārata*, I, 12.

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² Cf. “Uttare Rāma-carite Bhavabhūtir viśiṣyate.”

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³ Kalhaṇa’s way of mentioning also supports this conclusion, as according to Vārttika 4 to Pāṇini II. 2. 34 that which is more “*abhyarhita*” or respected should come first. But we may at the same time urge that no undue emphasis should be laid on such a subtle point of grammar.

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⁴ *Gauḍavaho*, stanza 69.

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¹ Keith, *A History of Sanskrit Literature* (1928), p. 150.

Yaśovarman's successors

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We are left to grope in the dark after Yaśovarman except for the uncertain light thrown by Jain sources, which allege that he was succeeded by his son Āma, born of Yaśodevī during her temporary exile due to the machinations of a co-wife. The *Bappabhaṭṭacarita* and the *Prabandhakoṣa* indicate that Āma held his court at Gopagiri (Gwalior), but according to the *Prabhāvakacarita* he, like his father Yaśovarman, reigned at Kanauj and not altogether at Gopagiri. Whatever be the truth, the importance of the tradition probably lies in showing that the region of Gwalior formed part of the dominions of Kanauj at this time. It seems that Jainism occupied the supreme position in Āma's heart, and he regarded Bappabhaṭṭa as his spiritual *guru*. He is also represented as going to Jain holy places like Cambay (Stambatīrtha) Vimalagiri (Palitana), Raivatādri (Girnar), and Prabhāsa (Patan) etc. Further, he is said to have been in constant rivalry with one Dharma, king of Lakṣamaṇāvatī, but the details are wrapped in utter confusion. Āma was succeeded by his son, the immoral Dunduka, who, according to the *Prabhāvakacarita* (XI, 759), was murdered by his son Bhoja. After this event we have no information whatsoever. We cannot give much credence to these tales based on tradition and more concerned with religious edification than with the narration of sober facts of history with some respect for chronology. But as there is nothing to contradict them, we may with S. P. Pandit say for the present that "all the credit that the Jaina stories have a right to claim is that king Āma was perhaps the son of Yaśovarman, that Dunduka was Āma's son, and that Bhoja was the son of Dunduka."¹ None of them achieved anything of note, and one was even prematurely murdered. We may, therefore, well believe that, if they really had historical existence, the length of their combined reigns must have been of extremely short duration—say between 15 and 20 years.

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¹ *Gauḍavaho*, Introduction, p. clix. See however, J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. III, N. S. 1927, pp. 101-33, where Dr. Kṛṣṇasvāmī Aiyangar stoutly maintains the credibility of the *Bappabhaṭṭacarita* and equates Āmarāja with Nāgāvaloka.

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THE ĀYUDHAS

Vajrāyudha

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Another shadowy figure occurring in this obscure period of our history is Vajrāyudha, whose actual existence is borne out solely by an incidental reference made by Rājaśekhara, the dramatist, who flourished at the Pratihāra court in the first half of the tenth century A. D. Thus he writes in the *Karpūramañjarī*² : "to the capital of Vajrāyudha, the king of Pāñcāla, to Kanauj," in connection with the itinerary of a merchant named Sāgaradatta, who had gone to the royal city on business. It is significant that Rājaśekhara uses the name Pāñcāla for the country of which Kanauj was the capital, although from its omission by the Chinese pilgrim we may infer that it was not the popular designation of this kingdom at that time.³ Vajrāyudha must have ascended the throne sometime about A. D. 770, since, as we shall see below, the Jain *Harivaṃśa* informs us that a king named Indrāyudha was ruling in Kanauj in the year 783-84 A. D., while we also know from other sources that he was succeeded by Cakrāyudha. The form of these names suggests that all the three monarchs belonged to the same line. If so, they must have ruled over Kanauj one after the other, for it is difficult to find a vacant place for Vajrāyudha elsewhere except before Indrāyudha. We further learn on the authority of Kalhaṇa that Jayāpīḍa Vinayāditya (779-810 A. D.), who tried to emulate the exploits of his grandfather Lalitāditya in distant lands, “after defeating the king of Kanyakubja in battle, carried off his throne the ensign of royal power.”¹ Evidently we have here an allusion to the defeat and dethronement of a king of Kanauj, and he is perhaps to be identified with Vajrāyudha, assuming that the attack on Kanauj took place soon after Jayāpīḍa became king of Kashmir. But if it occurred later in his career, the vanquished Kanauj monarch must have been Indrāyudha.

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² III, 5², pp. 74, 266 (Konow and Lanman's edition).

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³ The term Pāñcāla at first denoted the whole stretch of country

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¹ *Rājat.*, Vol. I, Bk. IV, verse 471, (Stein, p. 163).

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*Indrāyndha*

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Vajrāyudha appears to have been succeeded by Indrāyudha or Indrarāja, but it is not clear what relationship they bore to each other. According to the passage from the Chambal to the Himalayas, which was afterwards divided into North and South Pāñcāla. The Ganges formed the boundary between the two, and they had their capitals at Ahicchatra and Kāmpilya respectively. Varāhamihira (6th century A. D.) includes the Pāñcālas among the peoples of the *Madhyadeśa*, and reckons their country as one of the nine great kingdoms (*Bṛihatsaṃhitā*, XIV, 32; *Ind. Ant.*, XXII, p. 186). Presumably this list refers to much earlier times. Alberuni, who wrote in 1030 A. D., also mentions these nine divisions, but adds that the names were not then commonly used (Sachau, Trans., Vol. I, p. 298).

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them, we may with S. P. Pandit say for the present that "all the credit that the Jaina stories have a right to claim is that king Ama was perhaps the son of Yaśovarman, that Dunduka was Ama's son, and that Bhoja was the son of Dunduka."¹ None of them achieved anything of note, and one was even prematurely murdered. We may, therefore, well believe that, if they really had historical existence, the length of their combined reigns must have been of extremely short duration—say between 15 and 20 years.

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¹ *Gauḍavaho*, Introduction, p. clix. See however, J. B. B. R. A. S., Vol. III, N. S. 1927, pp. 101-33, where Dr. Kṛṣṇasvāmī Aiyangar stoutly maintains the credibility of the *Bappabhaṭṭacarita* and equates Amarāja with Nāgāvaloka.

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THE ĀYUDHAS

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Another shadowy figure occurring in this obscure period of our history is Vajrāyudha, whose actual existence is borne out solely by an incidental reference made by Rājaśekhara, the dramatist, who flourished at the Pratihāra court in the first half of the tenth century A. D. Thus he writes in the *Karpūramañjarī*² : "to the capital of Vajrāyudha, the king of Pāñcāla, to Kanauj," in connection with the itinerary of a merchant named Sāgaradatta, who had gone to the royal city on business. It is significant that Rājaśekhara uses the name Pāñcāla for the country of which Kanauj was the capital, although from its omission by the Chinese pilgrim we may infer that it was not the popular designation of this kingdom at that time.³ Vajrāyudha must have ascended the throne sometime about A. D. 770, since, as we shall see below, the Jain *Harivaṃśa* informs us that a king named Indrāyudha was ruling in Kanauj in the year 783-84 A. D., while we also know from other sources that he was succeeded by Cakrāyudha. The form of these names suggests that all the three monarchs belonged to the same line. If so, they must have ruled over Kanauj one after the other, for it is difficult to find a vacant place for Vajrāyudha elsewhere except before Indrāyudha. We further learn on the authority of Kalhaṇa that Jayāpīḍa Vinayāditya (779-810 A. D.), who tried to emulate the exploits of his grandfather Lalitāditya in distant lands, "after defeating the king of Kanyakubja in battle, carried off his throne the ensign of royal power."¹ Evidently we have here an allusion to the defeat and dethronement of a king of Kanauj, and he is perhaps to be identified with Vajrāyudha, assuming that the attack on Kanauj took place soon after Jayāpīḍa became king of Kashmir. But if it occurred later in his career, the vanquished Kanauj monarch must have been Indrāyudha.

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² III, 5², pp. 74, 266 (Konow and Lanman's edition).

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³ The term Pāñcāla at first denoted the whole stretch of country

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¹ *Rājat.*, Vol. I, Bk. IV, verse 471, (Stein, p. 163).

Indrāyudha

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Vajrāyudha appears to have been succeeded by Indrāyudha or Indrarāja, but it is not clear what relationship they bore to each other. According to the passage from the Chambal to the Himalayas, which was afterwards divided into North and South Pāñcāla. The Ganges formed the boundary between the two, and they had their capitals at Ahicchatra and Kāmpilya respectively. Varāhamihira (6th century A. D.) includes the Pāñcālas among the peoples of the *Madhyadeśa*, and reckons their country as one of the nine great kingdoms (*Bṛhatsaṃhitā*, XIV, 32; *Ind. Ant.*, XXII, p. 186). Presumably this list refers to much earlier times. Alberuni, who wrote in 1030 A. D., also mentions these nine divisions, but adds that the names were not then commonly used (Sachau, Trans., Vol. I, p. 298).

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in the Jain *Harivaṃśa*,¹ Indrāyudha was ruling in Śaka year 705 or 783-84 A. D., being known as king of the north. Hence we may conclude from this description that, even when its glory had departed, Kanauj continued to enjoy pre-eminence among the kingdoms of the North. It was probably during Indrāyudha’s reign that Dhruva Rāṣṭrakūṭa (*circa* 779-794 A. D.) invaded the territories of the Doab, and “added the emblem of the Ganges and the Jumna to his imperial insignia.” For, a verse in the Baroda plates informs us that he “taking from his enemies the Gaṅgā and the Yamunā, charming with their waves, acquired at the same time that supreme position of lordship (which was indicated) by (those rivers in) the form of a visible sign.”² During this raid the Kanauj sovereign appears to have invoked the aid of his Gauḍa contemporary, who was, however, compelled to submit to the invader. This is evident if we take the above verse in conjunction with another occurring in the Sanjan plates, where we are told that Dhruva “seized the white umbrellas, the sporting lotuses of Lakṣmī (goddess of sovereignty), of the Gauḍa king, as he was fleeing between the Ganges and the Jumnā.”³ The monarch ruling in Gauḍa at this time must have been either Gopāla or Dharmapāla, but as the former is not known from the inscriptions of the Pāla dynasty to have wielded any considerable power, it is better to regard the latter as the adversary of Dhruva.

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